Building Bridges: Leveraging Systems Theory for Collaborative Retention Solutions
Thursday October 26, 2023 - 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM
Concurrent Session 4

Brief Abstract

Retention stability requires a team effort, a useful framework, and sufficient data to drive decisions. This session will give you concrete guidance for conceptualizing retention, recruiting key stakeholders to your retention strategy team, and interpreting your data to pinpoint the interventions most likely to help you retain students.

Extended Abstract

Academic leaders grapple with the issue of how to keep students continuously enrolled until they graduate. Popular models of student retention advise us that there are many factors out of our control that influence attrition. The task of identifying institutional influences and then deciding which interventions will be most effective is daunting and this is where most retention models become less helpful. Many nuances will dictate which retention efforts are likely to be successful and in order to arrive at these conclusions a systemic framework and collaborative approach are the key that we have found to our success. The goal of this session will be to discuss retention through a systemic framework and how to design and implement strategies to ensure more students persist through graduation.

A key initiative for coming together to address student retention is the retention committee. The charge of this committee is to review relevant data points and steer initiatives designed to improve retention across programs. The retention committee can consist of faculty, both part-time and full-time, academic program directors, deans, associate deans, academic advisors, and administrative staff. The committee is tasked with collecting and reviewing data related to attrition. Each member brings critical insight to the table that sheds light on meaning underlying the data points. This committee’s sole purpose is to look at data surrounding retention numbers and determine if there are ways to improve outcomes around students who leave. The committee takes a variety of data points into consideration when looking at the information. A few examples are course sequencing, students self-report of why they are leaving the program, and systemic events such as COVID-19. In the session we will showcase our own retention committee while discussing possibilities that others may consider when forming their own. We will briefly share the open systems model and touch on the underpinnings of the systems framework that guides our retention committee philosophy as well as the major elements that are evident in the committee work: input, throughput, output, environment, and feedback. We will share categories of data that can be used to examine attrition trends and demonstrate our own method.

Creative Initiatives

We have found that initiatives based on process over content have been more effective in retaining our students. The different initiatives have been developed through a systemic mindset where we consider multiple levels of the organization and student. In an institutional effort to collect vital student information and data, a software dashboard was designed and implemented at the university so that stakeholders could access retention data in real time, track trends and provide transparency. The use of BIRST and Tableau are two ways that we have invited others to participate in the culture of retention. In our presentation, we will demonstrate that dashboard and recommend data points from those reports that have been helpful in reviewing the information.

For many years, administrators received feedback from students that it was helpful to work with the same faculty member for multiple courses. Based our retention data at the time, the committee observed that most students dis-enrolled from their program of study during the first three courses. The committee decided to implement an initiative attempting to address both feedback from students and higher attrition rates during the first three courses. Administrators began ensuring every student worked with the same faculty member for their first two courses in the program. The initiative had some interesting outcomes that we will share in this presentation.

Another strategic initiative by the committee was to redesign the codes used by academic advisors when a student withdrew or is dismissed from the program. Usually, the final person the student has contact with is the advisor who inquires about their reason for leaving. The advisor inputs a code into the tracking system allowing it to be a data point collected by our retention software. The ability to access those codes allows the committee to have a deeper understanding of the reasons students are choosing to leave and can then choose an appropriate response such as reaching out to the student to provide support. The challenge with the initiative is that reasons can vary dramatically as students live full and robust lives.

Our committees and school have generated several systemic interventions over the years that we will share with the group. The interventions have ranged from redesigning curriculum in a single course to altering the sequence of courses across an entire program. These first and second order changes will highlight the complexity that is retention. A comprehensive retention strategy requires multiple inputs and outputs in order to be successful.

What lessons have we learned?

In order for the retention committee to effectively oversee programs and process data it is important to have a consistent and complete report which each committee member can effectively read and understand. It is also important to highlight the importance of collaboration. Although each programs needs and solutions may vary, committee members are collectively championing one another’s programs towards thoughtful initiatives. As we see in the creative examples above, incorporating student and faculty feedback is a valuable part of the process.

Creating a culture of retention spanning both the school and university is vital for promoting student success. Moreover, retention strategies cannot be standardized, as they must be tailored to the unique needs of each student population. Retention is an ongoing and dynamic process requiring constant evaluation and adjustment to effectively support students and promote their persistence. Finally, collaboration across all stakeholders is essential for developing comprehensive and effective retention strategies to address the complex challenges faced by students in higher education.

Plan for Interactivity

This engaging session will implement several strategies that will encourage participants to interact with the material, presenters, and peers. As with all learning and training, we want the audience to be active participants in the learning process to the extent they wish to or are able. The presenters will use creative and brief PowerPoint slides to guide the conversation and formulate large group discussions. The emphasis will be on generating a learning environment where audience members are involved frequently.

Attendees will be asked to engage in small group discussions where they will apply the materials to their own contexts. Breakout groups will be brief with the intention of provoking social learning across all in attendance. It is recommended that attendees interact with one another to promote their understanding of the materials. The goal is to take advantage of the diverse wealth of knowledge and experiences present in the room.

The presenters will utilize real retention data and examples of the report to highlight the importance of systematic processes aimed at addressing the complex nature of retention. The examples will garner feedback from the larger audience and help to elicit strategies and interventions aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of our program support. Furthermore, we will use real-time polling to interact with the audience. Real-time polling will allow us to understand how the audience is thinking about the topics being presented and influence which paths to take them down. Salzer (2018) identified that active learning is the optimal way to engage learners in an educational atmosphere as they interact directly with the material rather than being a passive attendee.

Session Takeaways

Attendees will leave this presentation with three key takeaways related to designing systemic retention strategies.

1) How to create systematic and systemic retention strategies to support students, faculty, programs, and the university.

2)Interacting with retention data can be an intentional tool to inform small and large-scale retention strategies.

3) Creating innovative interventions and leveraging technology to build out a comprehensive toolkit that promotes student retention and persistence.